Team:Stockholm

From 2010.igem.org

Revision as of 18:50, 15 April 2010

About

We are a group of undergraduate students studying life science with professors as mentors at Stockholm University. This is our website about our work and effort in representing our school as Team Stockholm at the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition against other teams from all over the world.

iGEM is an internationell reseach competition focused on synthetic biology. Each team is given a kit containing biological parts for practical work, which takes place at each teams own school. The use of these biological parts together with self designed parts, will lay the ground for us to build innovative and useful new biological systems and operate them in living cells.

This competition opens up for students to think “out of the box” when engineering living organisms to be applied as tools when solving problems in healthcare, bioenergy, chemical and material production and environmental contaminations to name a few.

The principles in the field of synthetic biology is to combine science and engineering in order to genetically design and build living cells with novel biological roles and systems aimed at overcoming the obstacles in modern life.

Stay tuned for daily updates in the run up to the finals at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)!

Team members

Students

Nina Schiller

E-mail: nina@igem.se

Hi!

I am one of the team-members of Team Stockholm, my name is Nina Schiller and I am a master student in molecular biology at Stockholm University. It is the endless possibilities and opportunities in the field of synthetic biology that has caught my attention to put together our iGEM team: Team Stockholm. To me, this field of research and iGEM competition drives science researchers and students to gain better insight and take advantage of the diverse and powerful characters of living organisms. This summer, I will together with my team mates work our hardest to combine biology, chemistry and engineering in order to understand, harness and imitate the complex phenomena of biological life and finally build innovative and useful biological systems.

My goal with iGEM is to challenge myself to think “out of the box” and seek for ways to put together bits and pieces in science in order to design organisms that would prove useful in the obstacles in modern life. I look forward to build up my science knowledge and laboratory experience. Of course, with a great idea in our luggage, both my and the whole teams goal is to win the iGEM competition!

Andreas Constantinou

E-mail: andreas@igem.se

Hi!

I first came in contact with synthetic biology in 2008, when I heard about attempts to create a petroleum-producing bacterium to be used as an alternative energy source. Immediately fascinated by this idea, my main goal has been to study this interesting field ever since. This has now led to the starting of a Stockholm-based team in the 2010 iGEM competition.

What fascinates me most about synthetic biology is that it links biology and engineering together. With a great interest in both, I see iGEM as a unique opportunity for me to combine my creativity and knowledge in molecular biology to design and build a biological machine that can be used in every-day life.

With a revolutionary idea, dedicated and hard-working team-members and a large portion of self-confidence, Team Stockholm is ready to fight for the 2010 iGEM Gold Medal!

See you at the jamboree in MIT in November!

Johan Nordholm

E-mail: johan@igem.se

Greetings!

Synthetic biology is all about putting engineering into biology. And I think there is a small engineer hidden in each and every one of us. As with the ever-increasing understanding of how the building blocks of the cell function and are put together, so is our capacity to redesign the building blocks and the way they are put together. This has immense potential, I guarantee it can change our society as much as the computer industry has the last decades. This summer, I will do my best to apply existing biological knowledge to hopefully solve a scientific problem, if even a very small one. I am currently in my third and last year in the bachelor program of molecular biology at Stockholm University. As I have not yet undergone any research traineeship or degree project, my time spent in the lab is limited. I therefore find this project as a tremendous opportunity to change that. What makes this even more fun is that my teammates are some of my best friends.

Mentors

Prof. Elisabeth Haggård

Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology Stockholm University

Prof. Gunnar von Heijne

Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics Stockholm University

Prof. Lars Wieslander

Department of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics Stockholm University

Prof. Marie Öhman

Department of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics Stockholm University

Department of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics Stockholm University

Prof. Neus Visa

Prof. Roger Karlsson

Department of Cell Biology of The Wenner-Gren Institute Stockholm University

Sponsors

Faculty of Science at Stockholm University

Faculty head: Professor Stefan Nordlund

Support us

Your contribution is extremely valuable and will contribute significantly to our work in order to win the iGEM international competition. If you wish to support us you may use the following account information: Stockholm University Plusgiro account: 2235101, project nr: 2235101